Iqbal Hamza, PhD

• University of Bombay, India, B.Sc. & M.Sc., Biochemistry, 1985-1991
• SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine, Ph.D., Biochemistry, Mentor: Dr. Mark O'Brian, 1991-1997
• Washington University School of Medicine; Postdoctoral Fellow, Mentor: Dr. Jonathan Gitlin, 1997-2002
• Translational and Functional Genomics Branch, NHGRI/NIH, Sabbatical, Dr. Paul Liu, 2010-2011
• Genetics and Molecular Biology Branch, NHGRI/NIH, Sabbatical, Dr. David Bodine, 2019
• University of Torino, Italy, Visiting Professor, 2021

I am a professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, Center for Blood Oxygen Transport and Hemostasis at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Department of Animal & Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park.  The long-term objectives of my research program are to identify the genes and pathways responsible for heme transport and trafficking in eukaryotes which have remained poorly understood. More about my research group is available at : https://hamzalab.org/ 

Heme is a biological paradox: an iron-containing hydrophobic cofactor essential for oxygen transport, energy metabolism, and signaling, yet dangerously cytotoxic when unshielded. A central problem in biology has remained unresolved: how eukaryotic cells import heme, move it across membranes, traffic it between organelles, and deliver it with precision to hemoglobin and other hemoproteins. The mission of my research program is to close these long-standing gaps by defining the genes and pathways that govern heme transport and inter- and intracellular trafficking. 

At the University of Maryland, I intentionally launched a research program to uncover eukaryotic heme trafficking mechanisms that were unknown at the time. In pioneering studies using the invertebrate model C. elegans, my laboratory established that this roundworm is exceptional in that it cannot synthesize heme and must instead acquire environmental heme through diet to build heme-dependent proteins [PNAS 2005]. Leveraging this powerful genetic system, we identified HRG-1/SLC48A1 as the first eukaryotic heme importer/transporter and demonstrated its conservation in zebrafish and humans [Nature 2008; Cell Metabolism 2013; Science 2026]. We subsequently defined key steps in systemic heme distribution, including export from the intestine to peripheral tissues and embryos mediated by HRG-3 and ABCC5/MRP5 [Cell 2011; Cell Metabolism 2014], and uncovered mechanisms of inter-organ communication that coordinate heme homeostasis at the organismal level [Nature Cell Biology 2017]. Importantly, our work has illuminated conserved heme trafficking machinery not only in humans but also in medically-important parasites such as hookworms, filarial worms, and Leishmania that depend on host-derived heme for survival [Infect Immun 2006; PLoS NTD 2009; PLoS Pathog 2012].

Anemia; Heme; Iron; Porphyria; Leishmania; Parasites

Belot A, Rock A, Dutt S, Haemmerle G, Maros A, Yuan X, Otsuru S, Bodine D, Hamza I. A cell-nonautonomous heme acquisition pathway enables erythroid hemoglobinization under stress. Science. 2026 Apr 23;392(6796):388-394.

Sinclair J, Pinter K, Samuel T, Beardsley S, Yuan X, Zhang J, Meng K, Yun S, Krause M, and Hamza I.  Inter-organ signaling by HRG-7 promotes systemic heme homeostasis Nature Cell Biol. 2017;19:799-807.

Yuan X, Rietzschel N, Kwon H, Nuno Da Silva ABW, Hanna DA, Phillips J, Raven E, Reddi AR and Hamza I. Regulation of intracellular heme trafficking revealed by subcellular reporters.  Proc Natl Acad Sci, 2016; 113:E5144-5152.

Korolnek T, Zhang J, Beardsley S, Scheffer GL, Hamza I.  Control of metazoan heme homeostasis by a conserved multidrug resistance protein.  Cell Metab. 2014;19:1008-1019.

White C, Yuan X, Schmidt PJ, Bresciani E, Samuel TK, Campagna D, Hall C, Bishop K, Calicchio ML, Lapierre A, Ward DM, Liu P, Fleming MD and Hamza I.  HRG1 is essential for heme transport from the phagolysosome of macrophages during erythrophagocytosis.  Cell Metab. 2013; 17: 261-270.

Chen C, Samuel TK, Sinclair J, Dailey H and Hamza I. An intercellular heme trafficking protein delivers maternal heme to the embryo during development in C. elegans. Cell. 2011; 145:720-731.

Rajagopal A, Rao AU, Amigo J, Tian M, Upadhyay SK, Hall C, Uhm S, Mathew MK, Fleming MD, Paw BH, Krause M and Hamza I. Heme homeostasis is regulated by the conserved and concerted functions of HRG-1 proteins. Nature 2008; 453: 1127-1131.

View all Dr. Hamza's publications on NCBI

• 1987: Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Silver Award
• 2000-02: NIH Post-Doctoral Fellowship, NHLBI, NRSA
• 2001: Top 30 Outstanding Alumni, Canada World Youth, Montreal, Canada
• 2002-05: NIH Research Career Development Award, NIDDK, K01
• 2003: Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
• 2005: Outstanding Invention, Eukaryotic Heme Transport as a Drug target for Helminthic Infections, UMD
• 2006: Junior Faculty Excellence Award, AGNR, UMD
• 2010: Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize, UMD
• 2011: Excellence in Research, 44th Annual Alumni Awards Celebration, AGNR, UMD
• 2011: Faculty Excellence Award, AGNR, UMD
• 2012: Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
• 2012-16: Standing Member, Integrative Nutrition and Metabolic Processes Study Section, NIH
• 2017: Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2018: Chair, Gordon Research Conference, Chemistry and Biology of Tetrapyrroles
• 2018: Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility Fellow, European Union (Lund University, Sweden)
• 2019: Chair, Gordon Research Conference, Cell Biology of Metals
• 2022: NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS) Lecturer
• 2024: CAPES Print -Fiocruz Visiting Professorship, Fiocruz, Bahia, Brazil

Professional activities   (advisory panels, editorial boards, consulting)

Grant review panels: NIH, Integrative Nutrition and Metabolic Processes (INMP) Study Section, NIH, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2016, 2020; 2011, AARA RC1, AARA R15, Special Emphasis Panel – ZRG1 EMNR-H, EMNR-P; NSF, Metabolic Biochemistry Study Section, 2003, 2004, 2006; Telethon Foundation (Comitato Telethon Fondazione ONLUS), Milan, Italy, 2003, 2006, 2015, 2016; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) UK, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2018; March of Dimes 2010; Research Foundation - Flanders (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen, FWO), Belgium 2012; Israel Science Foundation 2013; Barth Syndrome Foundation 2015.

Manuscript Reviewer: Aging Research Reviews; American Journal of Hematology; Biochimica et Biophysica Acta; Blood; BMC Biology; BMC Cell Biology; BMC Genomics; Cell Metabolism; Cell Reports; Cell Stem Cell; Current Biology; eLife; Eukaryotic Cell; Experimental Biology and Medicine; Experimental Cell Research ; Experimental Parasitology; FASEB Journal; FEBS Letters; Food and Chemical Toxicology; Frontiers in Pharmacology; Frontiers in Immunology; Genetics; Genome Biology; Hematology; International Journal for Parasitology: Drugs and Drug Resistance; Journal of American Chemical Society; Journal of Biological Chemistry; Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry; Journal of Clinical Investigation; Journal of Molecular Biology; Journal of Nutrition; Molecular Metabolism; Nature; Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews; Open Biology; Pest Management Science; PLoS Biology; PLoS Computational Biology; PLoS Genetics; PLoS ONE; PLoS Pathogens; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA; Science; Science Translational Medicine; Scientific Reports; The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; The American Journal of Physiology - Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology; Toxicological Reports; Translational Research.

Editor duties: PNAS, eLife.

Editorial Board: eLife; Blood (Red Cells & Iron), HemaSphere

Founder and President: Rakta Therapeutics, Inc. (Incorporated: Sep 26, 2011).

Patent: Compounds for treating parasitic infections.  Inventors: Iqbal Hamza, Fengtian Xue. Patent number: 10227320; Filed: May 6, 2016, Date of Patent: March 12, 2019

https://hamzalab.org/ 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IGF48doAAAAJ&hl=en

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0045-0610